A NEW DIRECTION: At the right point in the afternoon, friends calling on Zandra Marinovic might find her lounging in a hammock that extends between the branches of two cypress trees.

View full sizeEliot Kamenitz / The Times-PicayuneA table with damaged legs got new life after Zanda Marinovic trimmed them to a usable point.

But instead of stretching out in the backyard garden, Marinovic naps in the space between the living area and kitchen of her renovated Lakeview bungalow.

Before Hurricane Katrina, the two rooms had been separated by a wall. Now, the space is open and bracketed by the cypress branches, stubs found among the vast wreckage of the storm. Overhead, Marinovic installed a gift from a friend: a 10-foot piece of sinker cypress that looks to have been pulled directly from a swamp.

For Marinovic, rebuilding has taken on characteristics of both an activist cause and spiritual quest.

"The house has given me life as I gave it life," she said. "I don't remember (the damage) sadly, because I gave it a new life."

ALTERNATIVE SOURCES: When the former physical therapist returned to her house six weeks after the storm, she found pieces of her life, including heirloom furniture from her native Bolivia, destroyed and scattered by the water.

PERSONAL SPACE

THE HOUSE: A 1,000 square-foot, single-story bungalow in Lakeview.

THE OWNER: Zandra Marinovic, 60, a 'recyclist'

THE SPACE: A spacious front living area/kitchen, furnished almost exclusively with repurposed materials.

WHY SHE LOVES IT: 'I gave them a new life,' she says of her furnishings. 'And they all have a story to tell.'

Determined to remake the house herself, Marinovic did not look to retailers. Another supplier turned out to be more bountiful: the debris-strewn streets.

She combed refuse piles and trash bins all over the metro area, looking to scoop up reusable pieces before they were grabbed by the demolition claw.

She kept asking the same question: "Why throw away something that can be reused?"

The results of her quest are on full display in the front area of her home.

WORTH SAVING: In the living room, a massive cypress trunk she found Uptown has become the base of an end table. A tiger-print chair that wouldn't have been out of place in the jungle room at Graceland sits next to an antique Louis XV-style chair -- one of the few secondhand pieces that was store-bought.

View full sizeEliot Kamenitz / The Times-PicayuneAs friends learned of Marinovic's efforts they contributed items, including this 10-foot piece of sinker cypress.

In the center of the room, a table with elegant spindle legs -- the reward for a climb into a trash bin -- is topped with barge board. When she found the table the legs were rotting, so she simply cut them off to the usable point.

The baseboards lining the room are made from tongue-and-groove cedar boards that once covered a friend's walls. Leaded glass from the window of a door decorates the picture window that looks across the street, where an empty lot now sits.

A group of distinctive wooden vases in the corner holds candles. They were some of the only furnishings from Bolivia that Marinovic recovered; she found them in the backyard, where they had floated.

The living room also holds two of the most prized items she recovered from the flood. A picture of her mother, who died a year before the storm, overlooks the room. The framed portrait was found face-down, but had little damage.

"Her spirit really pushed me on to be OK," Marinovic said.

She also found her great-grandmother's once-black shawl in the muck. It's discolored to brown in places, but Marinovic saves it as an important connection to the past.

UNLIMITED POTENTIAL: In the kitchen, a giant wood table with a weathered top forms the centerpiece. Fluted legs, made taller by stubs added at the base, hold up the massive lumber.

View full sizeEliot Kamenitz / The Times-PicayuneZandra Marinovic scooped up salvageable pieces that were discarded after the storm, asking herself, 'Why throw away something that can be reused?'

The cabinets that surround the table are largely made of cypress. On one set of doors, a water line is still visible. Amid the beautiful old wood sits a half-round Formica-topped shelf made in the 1950s, a Mid-Modern find recovered from a curb in Gentilly. The refurbished, cast-iron kitchen sink is another standout, featuring a rarity in the post-Katrina landscape: two drain boards.

Around the room, decorative iron porch brackets with a grape-leaf pattern are used as accents. A neighbor was about to discard the stately supports, but offered them to Marinovic instead.

In one sense, Marinovic was limited in her rebuild by having access only to items that could be found in the street. In another sense, the possibilities of each found object opened up to her as she gave it renewed use.

"I gave them new life, and they all have a story to tell," she said of the reclaimed items.

The eclectic style affords the space a rustic comfort, making it a favorite stop for friends.